For the September online edition of Art Basel, Goodman Gallery presents work by the established South African artists William Kentridge and Sam Nhlengethwa, as well as acclaimed Colombian artist, Mateo López. The works presented were all made in the artist's studios over the course of the last few months, before and during lockdown, in their respective cities.
In 2013, Kentridge & López collaborated in the Rolex mentorship and exchange program, where they spent several months together, exchanging ideas and engaging in an extended creative dialogue.
In Kentridge's words, the studio 'becomes a place where the world is invited in. There are images stuck up on the walls, thoughts coming in, conversations coming in, pieces read, images seen in art-historical books, films seen ... The studio becomes not just a diagram, but a physical demonstration of what it is that we do in our heads all the time, where we are both receiving information and bringing to that which we receive, things we already know—images, thoughts, associations—and making sense of the world by combining these two different processes.'
López's practice is anchored in drawing and often expands to incorporate other mediums. The collage works presented at Art Basel form part of the ongoing series The waste of my time in which López repurposes unused materials in his studio. This series brings into focus López's interest in art as a means of engaging with questions of repair, defined by his ongoing search to build and shape a different future—a process which unfolds into diverse references from Latin American art, architecture, design and education.
Over the course of his career, Nhlengethwa's ongoing Interiors series has become an important space for the artist to pay various tributes, bringing cultural icons into conversation with his practice and each other. The painting-collage works comprise an eclectic constellation of references and are presented together as their own contained interior space.